Scars
by obsidians
Summary: Sometimes people just need a second chance at love. Written for Sakurablossomhime.
1. Chapter 1

I don't own FF7 or any of its characters and make no profit from writing this story.

Tifa ran ahead to show Barret where to put the unconscious Vincent and thanked him and walked him out, deciding not to open her bar that night in wanting to tend to her possibly injured comrade. She regarded him, he didn't seem to be injured in any visual way that she could see, but he was still fully dressed, retaining even his cape and cowl and metal boots. She realized she had to undress him to examine him further.

Although Vincent was tall, he didn't weigh that much, so she easily removed his head scarf and cape and boots and with a little wrestling managed to remove his shirt, gun holster and finally pants and blushed when she realized he was bare beneath and drew the blankets up to his waist. A cursory examination proved him to be uninjured but for old and numerous red scars that flowed along his slender muscular body, looking so stark against the paleness of his skin. Finally, she removed the gold clawed hand from his left arm and was a little startled at how alien looking his limb was there with its purple skin topped with black claws and then understood why he never revealed his body to anyone and felt pity for all that had been done to him. Yes he was scarred, yet he was a beautifully made man who was kind and sensitive and intelligent. Tifa had always felt drawn to the reclusive man and now seeing him with all of his flaws completely on display just endeared him to her. She had her own scars from life and love that she wore mainly on the inside. Gently she reached down and started softly tracing her finger along the flow of his scars and then bent and kissed his chest as if to heal him.

This caused him to startle awake and he grabbed the person who would dare touch him while he was so vulnerable and held them pinned to the bed, his eyes focused and he realized it was Tifa and then realized he was naked and showing her all he tried to conceal from people and began to try to wrap the blankets around him to cover his shame. She pushed them back and leaned up and stroked his chest in acceptance of his supposed deformities, he shivered as she explored the exposed skin of his torso, gently following his scars with her fingertips as if they were a thing of beauty and not ugly, she began softly nibbling his neck while she ran her hands down both of his arms and then carded her fingers through his unruly hair and he looked at her confusion. Taking his dangerous hand, she tugged it forward and lay it trustingly on her own permanent scar that Sephiroth had left her in his madness and then he understood; she was trying to tell him that scars don't detract from the beauty of a person if you cared about them and everyone had them in some form or other.

Without a word, his lips that were hovering so close to her own, captured her plump lips in a desperate kiss and his hand slid up her top to capture one of her breasts while his human fingers slipped up her skirt and slid past the band of her panties and one entered her before she really even registered it.

Vincent couldn't help himself, it had been so long since he had been with a woman, Lucercia being his last, years of being in statis after that and the realization that no one would ever again accept him how he was now. Yes women came onto him, Yuffie stalked him but he didn't need a one nightstand or a teenaged girl with a crush, he needed a woman who knew all aspects of him and accepted him anyway. He had been so lonely and thought he would always be. Tifa, he had admired for so long and thought her wasted on Cloud. So long he had hoped she would look at him as something other than a friend. Tifa had stiffened beneath his arousal of her but showed no sign of trying to stop him.

Tifa's mind was in whirl as Vincent's one hand pushed her top over her breasts and began toying and plucking them in a beguiling way while another finger joined the first one inside her sheath that was already dampening under his ministration. She moaned against his lips and her tongue wrestled with his as her secret fantasies about Vincent unfolded and she gasped as he tore her panties from her and placed his tool at her entrance. His eyes were almost desperate with need, yet she wondered if she could take this final step, it had been years since she had been with anyone but then hungrily kissed him and wrapped her legs around him in acceptance as he nudged himself within her using what patience he had left.

He suppressed a moan at how she clenched on him as if trying to castrate him. Tifa obviously wasn't a virgin but how tight she was, indicated it had been a while for her too, he made himself pause, Vincent was a romantic and didn't believe in quick fucks or cheap one nightstands. When he was involved with someone, he was there for the long haul. However, he knew he wasn't going to last very long their first time together and mentally promised her a proper date and hours of gentle love making as he normally preferred as he started to move in her, pumping faster and faster with time.

Tifa gasped as she could feel ever nuance of his heavily engorged erection as he pounded it within her heated depths, touching her everywhere and making her experience the sheer explosive response of being taken by a dominate male. She herself had been lonely as well and fed his desperation with her own as they almost violently coupled. She was so loud as his harsh thrusts made her ride the finest razor's edge between pleasure and pain to his own heated moans and then her whole body when ridged and her seemed to shattered to millions of crystalline pieces.

Vincent was faring no better, he was actually physically trembling from the erotic stimuli of their first coupling and was desperately trying not to compare his last sexual partner with Tifa, Lucercia was the sort to bite and scratch on climax and often cry, yet Tifa's hands just stroked over his skin and she pressed kisses where she could reach while they made love, she was heavily into kissing. She came again and then realized that his hand was searching for hers and took it in a surprisingly sweet gesture as if letting her know her know he wasn't just there for sex but wanted to have a connection with her in every possible way. His own cry of release soon echoed her and squeezed her hand before covering her and cuddling her close.

Feeling they were past the point of all modesty, he helped her undressed and pulled her head possessively onto his shoulder. "You must think I'm easy" were her first words.

"No I think you're a fine woman who has been left wanting by the wrong man, you're kind, you're virtuous, you're loyal...and now you've been taken by the right one" he said picturing many happy nights of the two of them together. He liked to spoil the woman he was with and was practically a gourmet chef and longed to cook for her.

Tifa felt comfort at his words, that he was serious about them as her mind went spinning in the same direction and she willingly entered into the cage of his arms.


	2. Chapter 2

Cloud stood awkwardly in the doorway of the bar that was once his home for years, with his goggles dangling from one fist as he watched the lone occupant of the bar sweep up what appeared to be old, scattered confetti from the old scarred floor of the bar and noticed the place seemed to have been decorated as if for a wedding.

The lone sweeper finally registered that she wasn't alone and she turned a kindly face to the young man poised in the doorway. "Welcome to Seventh Heaven, young man. I don't officially open until tomorrow due having to wait until the rental company comes to disassemble all of this" she said indicating to the podium, wedding arch and various other wedding props. "But I am always glad of patronage and if you don't mind the setting, would be happy to pour you a drink" she said, placing her broom aside and walking towards him. She seemed to be of middle years but with a pretty, youthful face and trim body that were deceptive of her years. She had kindly light hazel eyes, a heart shaped face and long, light brown hair.

"Who are you?" Cloud asked her.

"My name is Greta, I'm the new owner of this bar. I'm thinking about changing the name, I'm not quite sold on it yet" she said. "Now what is your poison?" she asked him, stepping behind the bar as he had seen Tifa do so many time.

"I'm Cloud. I'll have a pint of beer with a slice of lime. I'm...friends with the previous owner" he with a slight hesitation in his voice at how to describe his relationship with Tifa. "Might I ask where she is?"

"On her honeymoon with her new husband, I imagine. They really threw quite the shindig last night, they had the wedding here for some reason and then had the reception at the fancy pants residence of President Shinra. There was the creme de la creme of society in attendance for sure, with lots of security and all of the TURKS seemed to be here" she said.

"Sorry, who is Tifa's husband?" Cloud asked her in a calm voice while his heart plunged in his chest.

"I'm so bad with names, even when I bartended the whole thing as a gift to them. He's the fella who used to lurk around looking like a cartoon vampire, you know the guy in the red cape with red eyes? The one with the gold scary looking metal hand" she said, making claws of her own fingers for emphasis.

"Vincent Valentine?" Cloud asked Greta through dry lips.

"Yes, that's the one. He's right handsome without his mouth guard, he sure cleaned up good for his wedding. He groomed his hair and wore a nice tuxedo black with red accents" she said.

"And the bride, what did she wear?" Cloud asked her, remembering how Tifa had always wanted a big white wedding.

"A tasteful white gown edged with black, a mantilla veil and carried a bouquet of red roses. It was rather demure compared to her normal style. I heard the rumours people used to spread about Tifa being a light skirt and all, but I never believed them. My family are publicans to the core and when you're young, you have to flash a little flesh and flirt a little to get regs in the bar business. In my opinion, she lived like a nun until Vincent. I even heard there was a guy she was pining for" Gerta told him and he took a swallow of his beer and mulled over what she said.

"Might I ask how long they were an item?" he asked her.

She shrugged, "no one really knows. One day they were acting like a couple and going around acting all clingy and making goo goo eyes at each other, you could have knocked me over with a feather, but I figured it was their business. This went on for a couple of months before he took her off the market and she was wearing this huge diamond ring, and then all this happened a month later. People were speculating that there is already a bun cooking due to the timing, but neither looked unhappy about that last night if it's true; they couldn't stop smiling. They both practically glowing they were so ecstatic. Newlyweds" Greta said with a fond smile and a shake of her head.

"Vincent was _smiling_?" Cloud asked her.

"Like the Cheshire cat. Everyone was giddy, well the Wutaian bridesmaid seemed a little subdued and the Wutaian groomsman with the ponytail kept on consoling her, certainly the black guy with the gun arm what gave Tifa away was having fun telling stories about them both. Nice guy. It was the sort of wedding where all the love and support for the couple was palpable. What a beautiful couple" Greta said looking nostalgic. "Wait why weren't you at the wedding, seeing how you clearly know them both?" she questioned Cloud.

"I lost touch with them because I was searching for where I belonged. I guess they must have moved on without me" Cloud vaguely explained to her.

"Did you ever figure that out?" Greta asked him.

"Yes but it looks like I shall have to start again from fresh, that place is no longer an option" he said finishing his drink and placing money on the bar.

"That drink was on them" Greta said. "I was planning to add it to their bar bill seeing how you are a friend of theirs and all. I'm sure Tifa wouldn't mind" she kindly explained.

This gave Cloud pause, "no I prefer that I pay for this drink myself seeing how I am no longer a part of their lives, keep the change" he said.

"Tifa promised to come see me after she got home and settled into her husband's mansion. Shall I tell her you came to see her?" she asked him.

"I would prefer you didn't. Out of curiosity, why did she decide to sell this place?" he asked her.

"She found her own piece of heaven I imagine. Besides, if a couple owns a bar together, they both have to be outgoing people. I'm sure between her having a reclusive, wealthy husband and possibly having a baby on the way, she felt she no longer needed the place" Greta guessed, polishing the bar in a way so reminiscent of Tifa.

"There's a boy named Denzel. Do you know what happened to him?" Cloud asked her.

"The other young groomsman? He's staying with the black man, I think his name was Barnett or something like that, I told you I'm terrible with names and his daughter until Tifa and Vincent return from their Honeymoon and then he told me he's going to live with them. He's so charming and polite" Greta said.

Cloud looked around the place, remembering Tifa excitingly pulling him around the dilapidated looking place and proclaiming she owned it and they were going to live there like a family. He thought back on them staying up late and laughing while he did renovations to the place to ready it for opening and many happy nights spent here with their friends. It seemed like the end of an era to Cloud.

Tifa saying she would wait for him when he left on his quest, trying to figure out where he belonged and he had made his decision and came back for her and the girl who loved him was gone. She was now a happy woman married to a worthy man and possibly going to be a mother soon. She had moved on and found her place in the world just as Cloud would have to. He realized the old adage was true; you never know what you have until it's gone.

"Thank you for telling me everything, Greta. You have a great investment here; I wouldn't change the name if I were you. It means: the final state of eternal bliss where God and the angels dwell. People will always be searching for that" he advised her.

"Did you ever find it?" she shrewdly asked him.

"I did, but I let it go" he said putting his goggles back on and walking to his motorcycle and she walked out with him.

"So now what?" she asked him.

"I have to find it again with new person" he said.

"So you were the one that kept her waiting?" Greta finally said, having figured that out long before now.

"I was stupid" Cloud agreed.

"You don't leave a woman of quality behind and expect other men not to notice her virtues. I'm sure she waited a long time for you, but eventually a woman has to move on" she semi scolded him.

"You're right, when I find the woman for me, I shall cling to her like glue. Until then, I have to make my own way in the world and find out where I belong" he said straddling the bike.

"Goodbye Cloud, I will always keep a room here for you if you ever need a place to stay" Greta promised him.

"Don't bother, this place is no longer my home" he said and roared away, forever the lone wolf.


End file.
